While we strive for a lively and vigorous debate of the issues, we do not tolerate name calling, foul language or other inappropriate behavior. Please see our discussion guidelines and terms of use for more information.

While we do our best to moderate comments, we do not screen comments before they are posted. If you see a comment that violates our guidelines, please use the "Report Abuse" link to notify us of the issue.

UK and EU regulations are much tougher than the US and that is where the issue you mention happened. Less regulation and more market force is the answer - let the consumer drive irresponsible companies out of business.

MOTR, one case where reducing or removing regulation improved quality is the Motor Carrier Act of 1980, which affected the trucking industry. It (plus a change in makeup of the relevant oversight board) removed regulations over what could be carried, what routes had to be followed, and what geographical areas could be served by a trucker, as well as the hoops that a new trucking company needed to jump through. As a result, trucking quality improved, according to a subsequent survey of shippers. The number of destinations improved: smaller towns had increased availability of trucking services. The number of complaints against truckers also dramatically decreased from before to after deregulation (from 340 in 1975 and 390 in 1976 to 23 in 1980 and 41 in 1981). The cost of trucking services also declined, and new innovations (such as shipping truck trailers on railroads) were allowed to be created.

An alternative would be to provide the FDA with the resources needed to allow a faster approval process. This might mean funneling resources for testing to companies with products that do well in initial tests.

Has anybody from either party suggested this?

Look at the Patent Office - the repubs consistently take their surplus (from patent fees) away from the Patent Office and dump it into the general fund. Surprise, surprise - patents now take years, if not a decade or more, to approve. That's enough to give any overseas competitor to get a jump on U.S. companies and makes it that much tougher to produce U.S. jobs.